Study finds one in 10 Texas 6th graders have had sex

Children at Risk, a state policy advocate organization, published today a series of studies and articles on sex and teen pregnancy in Texas. Some of the results may shock you.

According to a study out of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston:

Almost one in 10 Texas 6th graders have had sex.

The percentage of Texas7th and 8th graders who have had sex is 22 and 29 percent respectively.

Of high school-aged kids, 32 percent of 9th graders, 41 percent of 10th graders, 53 percent of 11th graders and 62 percent of 12th graders have had sex.

Just over one third of the entire public middle and high school population are sexually experienced.

Texas students are more likely to report having had sex with four or more partners and are less likely to have used birth control or condoms.

Texas students are also significantly less likely to receive education about HIV or AIDS in school.

Males are significantly more likely than their counterparts to report having sex for the first time before age 13, having more than four partners and using drugs or alcohol before having sex.

The results come from an analysis of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the CDC’s Middle School Youth Risk Behavior Survey and the University of Texas Prevention Research Center’s All About Youth study.

In an accompanying opinion piece, Jane Brown of University of North Carolina writes that Texas policy-makers should focus on educating young people about pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and increasing access to health care and contraceptives. From the editorial:

We have good evidence that age-appropriate, medically accurate sex education in schools is more effective than abstinence-only sex education – the kind that is still state-mandated in Texas. Economic analyses have shown that sex education is a good investment, too. For every dollar invested in sex education, $2.65 is saved in medical and social costs.

We also know that access to health care and contraceptives is important, but many of the school-based health centers in Texas do not distribute birth control, not even condoms. An expanded vision of what is possible with such an infrastructure already in place could be beneficial for youth who often have no other health care options.

Even though Texas does allow teens to get tested and treated for STIs and HIV, teens may not get prescribed contraceptives without their parents’ consent. In fact, Texas health care providers are supposed to tell the police when they see patients under 17 who may be having sex. Given that sexual initiation begins as early as 6th grade – and almost two thirds of high school seniors in Texas are sexually experienced – thinking of teenage sex as criminal behavior seems especially myopic.

80 Responses

Willing to bet that the results came from a child filling out a “yes/no” form. These are highly unreliable as the kid is repeatedly informed that there is no possible way anyone will know what his/her response is. Therefore the child will put “fun” responses on there, then go discuss with his/her friends how he or she put things like “I have had sex”. Worthless data. About the only true data we have to go on with this age group is pregnancy rate.

It probably would help to read the study instead of just guessing. Using your hypothesis only girls who got pregnant had sex. It discounts, mutual masturbation, oral, anal, and same-sex activity. It doesn’t recognize the odds of pregnancy.

It is like the girls in my high school who signed their abstinence pledges and then proceeded to do everything but have vaginal intercourse. And by everything I do mean everything.

While maybe not the most accurate way to undertake a survey all one has to do is take a look around, read the news, listen to conversations… Sex is happening. And in the broad sense, a lot more with preteens and teenagers.

A lot of parents are not involved with their child’s lives and the peers become all so important. TV and society adds to the problem.

Concerning Jeff’s stance: By the same reasoning the study could be slanted the other way also. Kids that don’t want to admit they’ve done it. Some do have shame. And a conscience. Plus the fact that what some say they write down and what they actually write down…could be two different things.

If you read the study: “Texas has the third highest teen birth rate in the US (63.1 per 1000 vs. 39 per 1000 females 15-19 years for the nation) and the second highest for school-aged females (36 per 1000 females 15-17 years).6 Texas ranks fourth among US states for Chlamydia (15.3%) and sixth for gonorrhea (2.0%) among females ages 15-24 years screened at family planning clinics.8 Texas also ranks 12th among states for diagnosed HIV cases among teens ages 13-19.”

Obviously Abstinence – Teaching Does Work.
9 out of 10 6th graders did not have sex. The majority are not having sex.

The rest of the kids having sex probably belong to the uninformed yahoos commenting on how Abstinence does not work.

How ignorant and narrow minded are these people who participate in a culture where we have successfully taught our kids to “Don’t Drink & Drive”, “Say No to Drugs” , “Click it or Ticket” and the like, yet think our kids are too Stupid to control their sexual urges.

Come on “You’re Stupid” you make it sound like it is a great thing that onle 1 out of 10 6th graders are having sex. You are talking about 11 and 12 year olds. None of them should be having sex at that age. Look at how high the numbers are in highschool and you can tell it does not work.

THANK YOU. Abstinence only education is the equivalent of sticking your head in the sand. Even ostriches don’t really do that. Kids are GOING to do the horizontal huckle-buck regardless of what we tell them. We may as well educate them on safe sex and pregnancy prevention instead of pretending what we don’t know and what we don’t tell them WON’T hurt them.

“We have good evidence that age-appropriate, medically accurate sex education in schools is more effective than abstinence-only sex education – the kind that is still state-mandated in Texas. Economic analyses have shown that sex education is a good investment, too. For every dollar invested in sex education, $2.65 is saved in medical and social costs.”

I guess my only question is why didn’t they publish said evidence if it is there? More kids have sex now…but what kind of sex. The younger kids have more oral sex than penetration…but then my stats just come from listening to the kids talk when they are oblivious to me…

A suggestion is to put different schools into youtube and see what pops up. You would likely be surprised.

it also has been showed that an investement in early childhood education reduces jail population, but because the difference is18 years, it is easier to cut the childhood investment and then blame the adult.

I come from NY and there are fewer places in the country with more Catholics. Chicago and Boston also have a lot of Catholics and even in Catholic school they teach abstinence but they also teach sex education. None of those places have any stats even close to Texas. Here they just teach abstinence. So do not blame it on the Catholics. They do not run the state or make policy here. It is the Crazy Christians and Conservatives, that are living in a alternative Universe that do.

The Catholic church can lobby for whatever they want. That doesn’t mean that they will get it. The fact is that abstinence only is not required to be taught in Texas schools. My son is currently just finishing up the Human Reproductive Unit in his 7th grade life science class in the Cy-Fair district, and it is being taught as abstinence preferred. If you can find a link to the Texas code where it requires abstinence only, I’d love to see it.

Even “Abstinence Plus” is a flawed program, that gives human error rates for contraception. So theyre telling kids that condoms work 66% of time instead of 99.7% time, if used correctly. Big difference. In addition, they won’t tell youth how to use condoms correctly (which will keep the human error rate that low), or where they can get them. “Condoms are just something that are somewhat effective that ambiguously exist somewhere out there…..”—-that’s still going to lead to unplanned pregnancies.

Way to go parents letting the public school system and peer pressure raise you children. Morals and good decision making are best learned at home, not on the streets. Many things cause the breakdown of the family unit but that is a cop out because many single parents, sick parents, grandparents have raised adults that have made the RIGHT decisions in life. These parents can only look in the mirror and pity themselves.

You are absolutely right for blaming the parents. If parents do their job of educating and guiding their kids, and keeping them busy, none of these would happen. I see kids in the 5th grade wearing make up and dressing up like a cheap (fill in the blank), and I asked myself, “what kind of parents let their kids dress up like that?” So before blaming the school systems, govt. or what have you, blame yourself (the parents) first!

Why does this surprise anyone? Parents let their children date when they are in the 6th grade. They let their 11-12 yr. old daughters dress like sluts and wear enough make-up to float a battleship. Many parents encourage their sons and daughters to have a girlfriend or boyfriend. If they are dating and kissing at 11, they are dating and screwing at 13, yet parents don’t seem to really care. Parents, especially mothers, seem thrilled that their little girl has a boyfriend, or that their son has a girlfriend. Parents even take those 11 & 12 year old CHILDREN to the mall and leave them unattended for hours. Parents just don’t seem to care what their children do anymore, date, kiss, have sex, do drugs, it is all good to them. SAD! SAD! SAD!

“In an accompanying opinion piece, Jane Brown of University of North Carolina writes that Texas policy-makers should focus on educating young people about pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and increasing access to health care and contraceptives.”

Naturally. This was an agenda-driven study with one goal in mind. I suspect Ms. Brown’s definition of “health care” could also be euphemistically referred to as reproductive “services.”

And let’s just say for a second that there is no bias in the study. Humor me here. Would you still deny the results? What if this were a study by some abstinence only group? Would you herald the results? Why don’t you read the study and decide for yourself if the facts and circumstances are truthful? Instead you hide behind a blinding agenda and can’t see past your bias. This is what is wrong with America today. It is the idealogues on the right and the left who just deny away facts. The heck with the sex; it isn’t the problem Sex is why we are all here. Idealogues are the reason we as a species may cease to be.

I think we should divide the schools into Democrat-children and Republican-children. Teach the Democrat-children age-appropriate sex education and the Republican-children “Abstinence Only.” Teach the Democrat-children science and the Republican-children creationism. Oh well, sounded good to me.

I like your sarcasm but in your scenario the repub children would excel and the dem children would be the ones in trouble. Kids do better when they have a father, are not in poverty and have some religious base. I know you hate it but it’s that’s life.

I have taught 6th grade fro 4 years and in the school I teach at we have had 6 6th grade pregnancies in that time. Biggest problem is not sex education it is parental involvement. This is a generation of kids raising kids so to them it has become the norm.

as long as the schools and commercials keep flying out of the t.v’s , radios and pc’s , 3rd ,4th and 5th graders will be spitting out babies …
so dont complain .
other then that , it gives the banker owned government a crises to work off of….

parenteenconnect.com is a great website for parents of teens to seek and give advice to other parents of teens on how they talk to their teens about difficult conversations such as bullying, sex, abuse and money.

@Jeff, I know this is hard for you to understand, but sex researchers are aware of the limitations of their methods and account for them. For instance, anonymous, self-administered surveys that youth know will not get back to their parents are fairly accurate. Surveys given by teachers, not anonymously, etc. are not as reliable. Also, what are we defining as sex? Vaginal intercourse? Anal? Oral? Mutual masturbation? Most adults don’t consider the last three “sex,” but did you know that the definition changes depend on who the teens are talking to? For example, if someone is bragging to someone about sexual activity, all of these might be considered sex, but if that same person feels judged or like they might get in trouble, none of them might be? There are controls in place for these, and while I have my own critiques of this study, I don’t think your opinion has a basis in the actual research.

@JamesRick: See my above response to Jeff. That being said, the data sets used by this article are from the CDC, which classifies sex as vaginal intercourse. In addition, questions asking whether youth were sexually active are inaccurate, IMO, because “sexually active” was defined as having sex within the last three months. So, there’s some wiggle room.

@Publius: Considering both peer-reviewed research which finds comprehensive sex education to be the most effective in preventing teen pregnancy and our state’s teen pregnancy and STI rates, her opinion is not something you can simply brush aside.

Having been in middle school and high school within the past five years I completely believe this. Kids are engaging in risky sexual behaviors (often with alcohol and drugs beforehand) as young ad 11 and 12 or 13. And its not uncommon for them to have multiple partners before the age of 15 and 16. They are also more likely to perform said sexual activities without protection. I would say an overwhelming amount of these kids are not aware that STDs can indeed be spread through sexual contact that is not vaginal intercourse.

Its been proven over and over again that a comprehensive sexual education will prevent both pregnancy and the spread of disease. Unfortunately people don’t want to face the problem and insist that sex education should be left to the parents at home, to which I say…
“If thats the case, then please teach your kids. Don’t just say you will and then don’t.”

Thank goodness that we have gotten past those evil, wicked stereotypes of women like Donna Reed, June Cleaver, Carol Brady, and those mothers who actually took care of their children. Our world is in a much better place.

Pardon me, but your bias is showing. According to a number of sources quoted at the attached site, involvement of fathers may be much more important to early sexual activity and teen pregnancy. That probably doesn’t match with your preference for blaming someone who is different than you though.http://www.fathersforgood.org/ffg/en/fathers_essential/count.html

One quote: “Teens without fathers were twice as likely to be involved in early sexual activity and seven times more likely to get pregnant as an adolescent”

Study finds one in 10 Texas 6th graders have had sex.
Please reveal the demographic where this occurred. The same way one slices and dices the census. I love the picture from Juno. But probably not the actual picture of the problem.

The explanation here is not complete. “More likely” and “less likely” are relative terms- compared to WHO? Last bullet point about males reads “more likely than their counterparts”…. who are who/where? Just curious. This piece doesn’t make any sense without the other side of each of these comparisons.

Not shocked at all. Kids here are getting messages from the church and from their schools and both are not working. I have never seen so many pregnant kids in my life. I came from NY and I am way past noticing things like that. But when I moved here I was shocked. And it seems the parents are either clueless or complicit. Do not think none of these children are not being egged on by a parent. I knew one girl who parent told me she was just training her daughter to be a good wife. Some of these parents want their kids to find a man(boy)and having sex is one of the ways to get one. Look at the way some of these kids dress and act. Do you think their parents do not see it? So yes Texas needs to get on the ball about this. But some of the parents of these kids are giving the wrong signals out too.

MAybe the laissez-faire, anything goes attitude of our schools (anything except prayer, that is) could be part of the problem. MAybe the removal of any stigma is part of it…50 years ago a girl getting pregnant meant she was done, now she is moved to the head of the class and the STDs and pregnancies are rising. Let’s ostracize them and see what happens. But that’s not PC. Seems nothing good, decent or wholesome is PC.

Thanks to the liberal media’s leftist thoughts for the past 40 years, this is what we get. For goodness sakes, there’s even a headline next to this one that says “The Silver Lining; Condom Use is Up”. Do you sheeple have rocks in your head?

I teach 5th and 6th grade and these is pretty accurate. For those not wanting to beliecve it…keep your blinders on. Truthfully, no one wants to believe that a 10, 11, or 12 year old is sexually active because we weren’t we were that age. Well times have changed and let me tell you just as was mentioned before, a lot of perent think it is a cute game. I had to pick my jaw up off the ground many times behind what I saw parents letting their kids do. Many push their kids to date that young and of course the consequence is sex. As another poster mentioned there are girls in the 6th grade getting pregnant and by 10th grade are on their 2nd or 3rd kid. This firmly rests on the parents.

Texas health care providers are supposed to tell the police when they see patients under 17 who may be having sex. Given that sexual initiation begins as early as 6th grade – and almost two thirds of high school seniors in Texas are sexually experienced – thinking of teenage sex as criminal behavior seems especially myopic.

My understanding is that health care/social workers are required to report evidence of suspected child sex abuse/molestation. Certainly, the editorial writer isn’t suggesting that people refuse to follow the law, is she?

I used to drive a school bus and was appalled at the early sexualization of these kids. The more sex is shown as natural and healthy and good as long as you “love” (middle school girls are in love constantly) someone and as long as you put a hat on willie, the more self-reporting kids will claim sexual experience. I would fully expect the % to increase with increased exposure to that environment. The only thing this study can say is that large numbers of kids claim sexual experience. Any other conclusion is speculation as to WHY they claim it. It may be true, it may not be, the WHY is just out of the scope of this sort of study.

What they didn’t say, but I would guess, is that these kids do not come from two parent homes. Kids being raised without their father may be the single biggest probelm we are facing today.
Also, since America has decided to be so compasionate and giving to single moms, marriage and parenting have become a sad joke. We have accepted and funded the “baby daddy” mind set. And, it doesn’t matter what age; if you have a kid you get paid.

Anyone under 21 who has a child should be sterilized immediately after delivery of the child. Over 21 must have limits – and partners.

All parents must attend and pass parenting classes before they can have their children – these classes must be at Birth, and yearly with appropriate skills until the child reaches 15, then every other year until the child is 21 – the legal drinking age.

There. Does that solve the problem? And it does NOT matter what religion you are – religion does not trump this solution.

You’re making an assumption that young parents are necessarily bad parents (or at least leeches on society breeding more leeches) but, like most generalizations, it’s not true.

Logic teaches that a statement is false if you can provide just one counterexample; I am a counterexample. I had my first child when I was 17. My husband and I(we got married right after I turned 18) had 2 more children by the time I turned 21. We’ve never been on welfare, we pay taxes on a $250,000 house, and we both have careers that contribute something to society. Our oldest child is now in college (working, too – paying her own way) the next is taking 5 AP courses this year (she’s a senior), the next is taking Pre-AP classes. We also have a kinder-gardener.

None of our kids have ever done drugs or even had so much as a beer. They also have made the choice not to date while still in school, because the road to get to this $250,000 was a tough one and they lived it. We were dirt poor at first, and we came up the hard way because we refused to take a hand out and we, as parents, often did without a lot of things just to make sure our kids at least had the necessities. They’ve seen first-hand that there are consequences for your actions and they’ve been taught by word and by example that the right thing to do is to own your own actions, accept responsibility for your own mistakes, and aspire to do the best you can with what you’ve got.

We didn’t need some holier-than-thou social worker giving us yearly classes on how to be decent parents, either. It’s really not that hard to be good parents. The problem isn’t that people don’t know how to do it, and it has nothing to do with being young – it’s that they just flat don’t give a crap (and I’ve seen worse parents in their 30’s and 40’s so don’t try to hand me any crap about age). There are people of all ages who would rather take the easy road and let someone else take responsibility for their choices.

…did they put in the calculation of how many of the kids as well as their parents have moved to Texas in the past 10 years? What states and countries?
We need to put the 4.2 million newbies in that mix so we can get a better picture of the national average. And how many kids? Did they count every single one? Or is it like polls…1,012 kids?